“Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted in a Brussels’ speech, that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.” – Investor’s Business Daily, Feb. 10, 2015
Firstly, I must thank John Hammond for pointing out two grave errors in my June 25 column. Obviously I need to rely on my research notes rather than my fleeting memory.
Some readers, especially Michael Mann however have missed the intent of my earlier column ‘Denying the deniers’. While I did reference some criticism of the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the thrust of my article was that the science is not proven and we need to encourage, not stifle, honest debate. We all remember that Galileo was imprisoned for denying that the Earth was the centre of the universe. We know and accept that the Earth rotates around the sun and that Galileo’s beliefs were not heretical.
Michael Mann’s defensive, diatribe in response to my “misguided, untruth-riddled commentary” has convinced me that his mandate is in fact to deny the deniers.
Right from the get-go, this anthropogenic climate change brouhaha has been a political exercise initiated by the United Nations in its mandate to the IPCC, not to study if there was any connection between climate change and human activity but rather to focus on “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the atmosphere, and which is in addition to natural climate variability.”
Millions of dollars of grants have been directed to this mandate rather than to study the long-term history and effects of climate change on life on this planet and how to adjust to the inevitable changes in climate. We don’t dispute that the earth’s climate is continually changing and will continue to change forever. We therefore need to study how we can best deal with that change. And yes, the determination of the cause of that change is a proper part of the study. It must however be a scientific exercise as opposed to a political one.
Politicians like Al Gore have profited immensely by promoting the anthropogenic climate change agenda. There has been virtually no opportunity for rational debate on the subject as opposition has been stifled and the awarding of research grants has been skewed towards those supporting the IPCC hypothesis.
Fortunately more independent-minded scientists are now coming forth with constructive debate to challenge these theories.
The unfortunate part of this entire scenario is that political conferences like Kyoto, Copenhagen and Paris have skewed public awareness to the point that considerable political and economic damage is now rampant.
Even as skeptical as I am, I will continue to keep an open mind. I will listen to open-minded scientists like Patrick Moore, Freeman Dyson, (a Princeton and National Academy of Sciences colleague of Dr. Mann), and others such as Harold Warren Lewis, who stated that global warming was “the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud” he has ever seen. Everyone should read Professor Robert Carter’s 10 facts and 10 myths about climate change. One of his factoids is “The biggest untruth about human global warming is the assertion that nearly all scientists agree that it is occurring.”
As Dr. Roy Spencer states: “An objective scientist should look at both sides.”
Ken Allred is a former St. Albert alderman and MLA.
